Right, it's not Bitcoin. It's a near duplicate of Bitcoin, with 99.99% of the same code, and three superficial innovations through two changed parameters.
In case you don't know Bitcoin's code is open source. It's not proprietary. It's designed so that anyone can view, use, copy or alter it for free. The same goes for Litecoin, and in fact something similar happened to Litecoin called FeatherCoin. The fact that the code can be largely used as is speaks to how good the original design is.
We don't have to have a fully functional parallel network with its own ecosystem of exchanges to have a backup hashing algorithm. Using a backup hashing algorithm is a matter of changing the Bitcoin code to swap out SHA256 for something else.
"Swapping" something out, like the hashing algorithm, isn't like flipping some switch. Any protocol change in Bitcoin is inherently hard, and gets harder the larger the group is which uses Bitcoin because there are more opinions about what change should be made, if any at all, and how and when to go about it. Indeed I don't see much chance for any successful protocol change once Bitcoin reaches a near global user base. Protocol changes wouldn't be impossible, but I'd say extremely difficult.
A currency's viability is not just about technology. It's also about value. We need to work to preserve and protect the value of bitcoins, which requires not encouraging the adoption of additional blockchains that add to the total number of coins and provide the same currency function.
No we don't need to preserve and protect the value of bitcoins. That's not how a free market works. The free market will assign the value where it should be.
You don't get it. 21 million bitcoins isn't less than 7 billion. A bitcoin is equal to 100,000,000 Satoshis.
No you don't get it. A dollar is equal to 100 pennies. That doesn't make the dollars in your pocket worth less. Only more
whole dollars in the money supply does that.
Going from 21 million to 106 million coins (21 million bitcoins + 84 million litecoins) would mean inflating the money supply by 400%. That is all that matters.
No it doesn't mean that. You can't inflate Bitcoin's money supply, nor Litecoin's, and the two are not the same money supply. Now what you can do is increase the total
cryptocurrency money supply. However, that has already happened. There are a lot more cryptocurrencies than Bitcoin and Litecoin. And that creation hasn't ended, I assure you.
And you really think litecoin will be the last cryptocurrency with an enthusiastic group of early adopters claiming it's a necessary 'silver to Bitcoin's gold'? No of course not. There will be others, and they will be push until MtGox puts them on the exchange too.
No I don't think that. Like I said above there will be other new coins regardless to what you or I say. However, those new coins while being able to duplicate the code of Bitcoin or Litecoin can't as easily duplicate their user base. That's the key.
At this rate, cryptocurrency will have an inflation rate far above any fiat currency. This is already the criticism that Bitcoin's harshest critics are making against it, and now we see that it potentially has some merit, with late-comers to Bitcoin pushing for the addition of 84 million coins, on their Bitcoin 2 network, to the currency supply.
I understand your fear, but I believe it's unwarranted. As I describe above the inflation of cryptocurrency is inevitable as the code is open source. However, that doesn't mean every unit of cryptocurrency created has value.
It is almost exactly the same as Bitcoin, and will be used in almost exactly the same roles. More coins = each coin has less value. Supply and demand is an iron-clad economic law.
That's true, but I don't believe there will be much more than Bitcoin and Litecoin accepted at a global scale; that means a total money supply measured in millions, not trillions like what the world is used to now.
It's a Bitcoin market when it's all based on Bitcoin technology.
Like I said above, Bitcoin is open source, not proprietary. And the name "Bitcoin" is arbitrary. You could call Litecoin Bitcoin an call the blockchain trading now on MtGox SatoshiCoin.
